Russia-Ukraine war: Kiwi photojournalist Tom Mutch, banned from Russia, sneaks in with Ukranian troops

Tom Mutch is a Kiwi photojournalist and war correspondent who became embedded in Ukraine just before Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed his military might on the country in 2022. Last year, Mutch also travelled through Israel and the occupied Palestinian West Bank a month after the Israel-Hamas conflict. He has recently spent time in Russia.

“We’re in Russia,” Vadim, the hard-bitten Ukrainian officer growled as he looked around at the small crew of journalists and soldiers filling the back seats of the Armoured Personnel Carrier.

We had just hit a particularly nasty bump in the road, whether from artillery fire or simply neglect in this deprived region, we couldn’t tell. I had never expected to hear those words. After two years of reporting in Ukraine, including on Russian war crimes in Bucha, Kharkiv, Kherson and more, I had always thought I would receive a frosty welcome. This was confirmed to me less than two months ago, when the Russian Foreign Ministry released its updated list of Kiwis who had received official sanctions from the Russian Government.

“In response to the politically motivated sanctions against Russian individuals and legal entities, introduced by the Government of New Zealand as part of the collective West’s Russophobic campaign, entry to the Russian Federation shall be additionally closed in perpetuity to 36 New Zealand citizens,” the Kremlin’s scribes wrote.

There I was, number 17, along with an interesting and quite random mix of characters, including several other Herald journalists, the Mayor of Wellington and some of the Kiwi soldiers in charge of training Ukrainian troops in England.

That would have been the end of my story in Russia, if not for the extraordinary events of the last month. On August 6, Ukrainian troops launched a surprise attack on the southern Kursk region, which borders the strategic Ukrainian oblast of Sumy.

The Russians had attacked here and besieged the regional capital when they first launched their full-scale invasion nearly two and a half years ago. Now, it was time for payback. Ukraine’s crack troops smashed through poorly constructed Russian border defences – the buildings we saw at the old border crossing had all been destroyed in a hail of artillery. They swarmed the region, quickly capturing more than 1200sq km of Russian territory, including the town of Sudzha.

They also took hundreds of Russian soldiers prisoner and dealt a huge blow to Vladimir Putin’s claim to be a protector of Russian territory. So, the Ukrainian soldiers who now controlled this border crossing were more amenable to my visit, with a small crew of other reporters from countries as varied as Spain, Saudi Arabia and Latvia. Under military escort, we set off from the city of Sumy, normally a quiet riverside town with picturesque churches, but which has been smashed by regular Russian missile strikes in recent days.

The road was full of Ukrainian armoured vehicles, regular cars and the occasional tank, each marked with a white triangle, the symbol of the assault, which has become the antithesis of the infamous Z sign put on the vehicles they used in the first days of the assault. The small villages on the border are almost devoid of life, with many of their buildings destroyed by Russian glide bombs, fired by jets from the safety of the other side of the border.

After more than an hour’s driving, we parked up and followed the soldiers into the main square of Sudzha. The small town, originally of around 6000 inhabitants, was almost completely deserted. Just outside the town hall was a monument to Lenin, which has been almost destroyed. You can see Ukrainian nationalist graffiti on the walls, and the streets are covered with debris and broken glass.

A Ukrainian soldier looks at the shattered bust of Lenin in the main square of Sudzha, in the Kursk region of Russia. Photo / Tom Mutch

On several occasions, our Ukrainian escorts yelled at us to watch our steps, as there could be unexploded remnants in the ground. We could hear artillery fire close by, but the intensity was mild compared to the battles in eastern and southern Ukraine. Suddenly, Vadim received a call and warned us we were in danger. Ukrainian spotters had seen Russian drones heading in our direction. He directed us to a basement underneath a nearby elementary school, where we came face to face with our first Russians – a group of huddled and frightened civilians.

Having spent so much time in shelters with Ukrainians, it was both a bizarre and eerily familiar experience. A hastily written sign next to the staircase read “peaceful people”. They looked shocked, frightened and pale, although there were no signs of mistreatment or injury.

The local officials, they said, just fled in terror. Those with their own transportation were able to leave for the safety of the nearby city of Kursk, but there was no evacuation available for those remaining. They were mostly elderly, but there were a handful of children. The relations with the Ukrainian soldiers were, if not friendly, at least cordial. One old woman described the townsfolk as “simple and poor” people, who had nothing against Ukraine or Ukrainians and just wanted to live their lives undisturbed. They had no power to influence the Government, they said, so why should they be blamed?

After nearly two hours of hiding in the shelter, the Ukrainians said it was time to make a break for it. Our ride pulled into the courtyard, and we quickly piled aboard, drove at top speed for the border and were soon back in free Ukraine. Despite their country’s frequent and brazen violations of the territory of another country, the Russian authorities have reacted with fury to any unsolicited visits to their own turf. Government officials have threatened all journalists who report on Russian territory with prison and extradition to Russia and have criminally charged at least seven reporters for their work in Kursk. These include reporters from CNN, Italian broadcaster RAI and German outlet Deutsche Welle.

The official Russian news agency, TASS, wrote an article about my trip to Kursk, although nothing official has followed from this.

For Ukrainians, it is a major political and public relations victory. The war news recently has not been positive. In 2022, Ukraine shocked the world by repelling the Russian attempt to storm the capital, Kyiv. It then organised skilful counter-offensives which regained large amounts of territory in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.

Since then, the Ukrainians have faced almost constant setbacks. The counter-offensive of 2023 failed to regain any significant ground. The Russians have continued to slowly gain territory through grinding attritional war in the eastern Donbas regions – taking first Bakhmut, then Avdiivka, and they are now closing in on the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk. So the victories in Kursk are a huge morale boost for a population with little to celebrate.

Yet the news from the rest of the country remains grim. All around the country, Ukrainian civilians continue to suffer hugely under the attacks of Russian forces. Shortly before my trip to Kursk, I visited the frontline Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. Once home to more than 80,000 people, it is nearly a ghost town. Every day, Russian drones, artillery and glide bombs smash into the city.

I travelled with an evacuation bus that ferries dozens of civilians from home to safety every day – at one point the explosions were so close that the windows started shaking. Police cars drove around the city with loudspeakers desperately calling for people to evacuate before it is too late.

Tearful civilians in the frontline Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. Photo / Tom Mutch

Olena, a 37-year-old woman from the region, was fleeing the Russian advance with her husband, son and mother. She said that they had lived mostly normally even after more than two years of the full-scale invasion, but that in the last two months, it had become intolerable. They had spent the last several days sleeping in basements with the sounds of fighting raging around them. Her son had become particularly distressed, and she said she wanted to leave “to give him the best life possible”. They hoped to return home one day – she said she didn’t particularly care who won the war, only that the shooting stopped.

For them, the Kursk incursion meant nothing. The only hint of normality was a group of four young people playing volleyball in a court next to an empty park. The thump as they hit the ball contrasted with the crack of artillery in the distance.

In Ukraine, war and normal life exist so close to each other you can scarcely believe you are in the same country. In Kharkiv, packed nightclubs can be found less than a 30-minute drive from some of the country’s hottest front lines.

On Monday, a huge series of missile strikes targeted energy infrastructure, once again plunging large parts of Ukraine into darkness. It threatens to be a cold and miserable winter for those remaining in Ukraine. Still, Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk have shown that the country remains willing and able to take the fight to their enemy. It is still too early to count them out.

Sign up to the Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.